Romney's Vision for Etch-A-Sketch America Takes Hold

In the lead-up to his increasingly frightening (if increasingly successful) appointment as Willard Romney's running mate, various pollsters presented to various Americans, in various contexts, the details of the zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan's "budget" and the actual provisions therein. It did not poll well, across the board, for the most part. None of the precise details of what the Republicans were actually planning to do, it seemed, were really polling well at all back in August. Voters simply did not believe that any politicians would be so suicidal as to actually act on some of this nonsense. That was then, and here we are, with three weeks left, on the brink of having Willard Romney as our president.

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I am quite serious that Romney may win this thing after all. I make the president no better than 6-5 against at this point. And this latest PPP/SEIU poll is the real thing, and so is this new Gallup poll and they are only the latest in a string of really bad numbers for the president. (And, no, "stabilizing the race" is not winning. Not when you've managed to fritter away a perfectly good working margin, thereby throwing several states well into the heart of the Margin of Chicanery.)

You can feel what had been disadvantages for the Romney campaign all year turning into advantages in the homestretch because people like to be with winners. His stonewalling on practically everything, from his personal finances to the details of his economic plan, is now being seen as his being resolute. The fact that he really has become quite a remarkable liar is now being seen as a clever tactical "tack toward the center." People who laughed at the Etch-A-Sketch idea six months ago are buying it quite seriously now. At your throat or at your feet. That's our political elite.

But, as to the latter, this is what those long-forgotten polls are all about. People are looking at what Romney supported during the primary campaign and they simply refuse to believe that he would turn any of that into policy because they don't believe any politician would risk damaging that many lives. (There's a reason why the Ryan "budget" makes even its supporters hide under the bed. It's a gimcracked blueprint for dystopia and ruin.) There is more at work here than simply a belief in "moderate Mitt." There is also a belief that you, yourself, never would be silly enough to throw your support behind anything as vague and radical as what Romney and Ryan propose to do once they get elected. Social Security would never be privatized. Medicare can never be a voucher. You would never vote for any of that so, therefore, these guys can't be serious about it or else you wouldn't be voting for them. That loop right now is perilously close to being closed.